Thursday, September 22, 2016

OBERHEIM OB-XA VINTAGE ANALOG SYNTHESIZER

"A statement about Oberheim's "A big part of the "raw" sound of the early OBs is the VCA and voice summing audio circuit. The early stuff used a CA3080 OTA for both VCA and summing audio. Oberheim pushed the 3080s hard which pushed them into mild distortion. That 3080 overdrive contributed to the raw sound of early Oberheims.

The OB-Xa used the CEM3360 VCA in the voice summing circuit which was much cleaner and less distorted than the 3080 and that's when the sound started to change (VCA was still 3080). OB-8 further replaced the VCA with CEM3360 removing 3080s completely from the signal path. Tom Oberheim used to complain that the OB-8 was "too clean" and this is why.

That's why the progression of Oberheims got less raw sounding"."

According to listing this particular OB-Xa was previously owned by Synthartist69, and is the one featured in this video.